Promises
by Mrs Ronald Weasley
Summary: Chase finds a way to move on a year after the accident. Sequel to The End. ChaseCameron. Written for lj's fanfic50. Prompt 008. Promise


**Promises**

Author: Mrs. Ronald Weasley

Rating: PG-13

Pairing/s: Chase/Cameron

Warnings: Major character death

Spoilers: You might want to read The End first.

Category: Angst/Tragedy

Summary: Chase finds a way to move on a year after the accident.

Prompt: 008. Promise

A/N: Written for fanfic50. Part two/sequel to The End.

She was everywhere; the evidence of her presence was everywhere he looked. Her things were still scattered on the dressers, her clothes still hung in the closet, everything that held the slightest suggestion of her was in its place. It was as if the entire apartment had been frozen in time. He wished it could be.

More than anything, he wished he could have saved that last morning, could have truly stopped time, preserving them forever. He hadn't known. How could he? How could he have possibly known that as she left, it would be their last laugh, their last moment in the blissful ignorance of life's frailty?

"I'll be home around seven, okay?" She moved, letting his hand slip from her back as she grabbed her keys to go.

"Okay." He kissed her cheek almost absently as he turned to straighten his tie in the mirror.

She paused at the door, giving him a little smile, her smile for him. Silently, she mouthed the words as her smile turned into a grin. Love you.

He mouthed them back. Love you too.

If only he had stopped her from going.

They should have known. They, more than anyone, who saw the tragedies of life first-hand, who saw the grief of victims' loved ones, should have known. But like everyone, they thought they had time. With willful blindness, they thought they had forever to live, to be together, and to savor the sweetest moments. They thought they had eternity.

They were very wrong.

In a second, everything had been torn from them, smashed, leaving nothing but emptiness.

They told him he was lucky. He was lucky to have been there, to have had those few precious minutes with her. Some people didn't even have that, they reminded him. That was no comfort.

With a fierce determination, he'd dug out every photograph he had of her, her image accosting him from every direction. It was a sweet torture. She was smiling at him, in the innocence of the moment, so real he could imagine her here, close enough to touch, before she vanished in a wave of tears.

Their home was empty, cruel reminders of a person who would never live there again everywhere. He needed it. He needed the pain they would bring, the scent of her on the pillows, the fleeting images of her sitting on the sofa, soaking in the bathtub, leaning against the doorframe. He would keep her real, keep her remembered. The pain did that.

In the end, she did not hide her pain from him. It showed clearly on her face, painted her skin its rosy bloom. She did not hide her fear from him, though it cut him to the bone. I don't want to die, she whispered, as she fell into the arms of a man who could not save her.

He made promises he could not keep, assuring her that all would be well, even when they both knew it wouldn't be. Despite the pain, she took comfort in his embrace, as he kissed her farewell. In the moment she met his eyes, the pain of leaving was stronger than any mortal wound. The words came easily.

I love you so much.

Chase was not the only one to suffer. He knew the loss had hit Foreman hard in particular. They each offered the other what comfort they could, both mourning the same woman. But his loss was unlike Foreman in a thousand ways. He had lost his best friend. Robert had lost his lover, and with her, the greatest part of himself. He had lost the woman he woke up to in the morning, the woman to whom he told everything, the woman with whom he'd been re-discovering life. Except life ended, didn't it? A single golden thread cut short by a swift, cruel blade.

It was unhealthy, they told him, to live as he did. It wasn't, in fact, living, they argued, to spend hours gazing at a single photograph of the two of them, smiling and in love. To leave everything in his life untouched, unmoved, frozen in a time where she lived.

He didn't give a damn. If what he was doing wasn't living, then he was fine with that. There was no living to be had.

To his amazement, Eric found the apartment untouched, Cameron's things still out in the open, a defiant gesture to assert the fact that she had been there. She had lived.

"Hey, Foreman." As it always did now, the look in Chase's blue eyes chilled him a little, a hollowness there that he only hid when House was present.

"You haven't changed anything."

"No."

"You have to-"

He laughed, "What? I have to move on? Let go? Forget? Is that what you're here to ask me to do? God, I bet Cuddy sent you after House called, didn't she?"

"She did," he admitted. After six months of steady attendance at work, Chase had disappeared for three days, taking no calls from anyone.

"Are you here to console me, then?" He laughed again, bitterness obvious in the sound. "How can you, of all people, ask me to forget? How can you expect me to forget her?"

"I'm not asking you to forget her," he said softly, "I never could. But you have to start living again. You can't let this kill you too."

He collapsed in a chair, staring out the window. "You know, that's what she said to me."

"Cameron?"

"She told me to not let this kill me. She said I should keep on living without her," he looked at him, his gaze unfocused and blurred, "For her sake, I will. For your sake, I will."

"You have to live for yourself," he urged.

"What is there left of me?" he asked. Foreman could not answer. At that moment, the man before him was ghost-like, hovering in that way station between the living and dead, tugged in both directions by the two people he loved. Eric left. He could give no comfort here.

A year passed, although it might have been a hundred, for all he cared. Life, as it has a tendency to do, went on, unheeding of his loss. Her birthday passed, Christmas passed, every day that had meant anything to them passed without her. No one saw him on those days; he was a dead man walking.

He continued to work, quietly, unflinchingly, although he no longer lingered around any longer than he had to, didn't even come by any more than he had to. In time, they hired someone to take her place, another woman, whom he barely acknowledged. He barely acknowledged anyone.

She pushed for his friendship, only dimly aware of the woman that came before her, the woman that haunted the minds of everyone in the office she now called her own. She pushed and pushed, never cracking through his wall. It wasn't until he stopped answering her calls one day, made no appearance or contact with anyone, that she finally asked.

Foreman was the one to explain.

"It's the anniversary," he said quietly, looking down at the center platform from the second level stairwell, the image of a browned-haired doctor flickering in his mind.

"Of what?"

The woman's ignorance stung bitterly. "There was a woman before you, you know," he struggled not to sound harsh. How could this woman not possibly know?

"Dr. Cameron."

Staring wistfully into the distance, Eric nodded. "She…died a year ago today."

"Does this have something to do with Doctor Chase's cold behavior?"

Foreman squeezed his eyes shut, memories of the once happy, generally up-beat Chase surfacing beside those of his friend, a slight smile blossoming as he remembered how happy they'd been. "They meant the world to each other, you know?" he wiped at his eyes, willing the tears back, a short laugh escaping his tight throat.

"They were…partners. In every sense of the word. God, Chase…Chase wasn't always like this. You should know that. He used to be…happy. Not all of the time, but…you know, they used to fight all the time," he said, leaning against the railing, remembering some of their more epic battles, the thought so clear he could almost hear their voices echoing still.

"Right from the start, they got under each other's skin. But they loved it. Took them forever to admit it, but they did. Allison …she had a hard life. But when they were together…I've never seen my friend so happy. They were happy." Foreman nodded to himself, looking at his colleague through bright eyes, "If you're going to work with Chase, you have to understand what he's lost. When Cameron died…there's a part of him that they buried with her."

The woman tilted her head slightly, as she slowly processed Chase's reasons for refusing her every request. She was an intruder, in his eyes, a twisted replacement for a woman she didn't even know. Still. "It doesn't make sense for him to still be so…you know."

Foreman shook his head. "It doesn't have to make sense to you. All you have to understand is that Chase is never going to give anything more than what his job demands of him, he's never going to involve himself, or let you into his life, and you can't push him to. He's got nothing more to give."

He sighed, his explanation opening the tender wound his friend had left behind. "Sometimes I think the only reason he even bothers is for me. I'm all he's got left. You don't have to get that. What you need to know is that for Chase, Cameron was everything. And when she was gone, all that was left is what you see now."

He was alone. Foreman was at his own apartment. It was probably for the best. He wanted to be strong, wanted to be able to be a good friend; he succeeded most of the time, but today? Today he wasn't sure he had the strength to stand.

The pain had settled over the past year to a persistent ache, a gaping hole that at times threatened to consume him. Standing before her grave, this was one of those times. Behind closed eyes, he let himself remember her smile, her laugh, her kiss, the bright intelligence in green eyes. He could almost hear her chastising him for not putting his heart into his job, a heart that still lay in pieces in the middle of an intersection, on cold pavement that had been washed of the blood that pooled there, a year ago.

With every life he saved, he atoned a little more for the single life he couldn't, the one that mattered. That would have to be enough.

Lying in bed that night, Chase breathed in her scent that still lingered on her pillow. When he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine she was there, making the pain, when he looked to see nothing there, that much worse. He missed her most at night, when everything was quiet and still, and he could so easily hear her voice in his head, her touch on his skin. At night, he could let himself cry, feel the hurt that left him hollow in the daytime.

At night, he could dream.

He usually dreamed of memories, of times when they were happy, alive. He relished those dreams that brought her to life, bearing the renewed pain when he awoke to find her gone.

Tonight, he dreamt of her. Of that day.

He was holding her, but she did not respond, did not open her eyes, the tears still wet on her face. He called her name, his song, praying for a miracle that would bring her back.

"I can't do this," he cried.

Her voice came from behind him. "Yes, you can." She was standing above him, clean and beautiful, with that half-smile tugging at her lips. "And you will." She knelt beside him, touching his face softly. He could feel it. Could feel her, and he realized just how much he'd missed it. "Keep your promise," she urged, "Keep living."

"I miss you," he choked out, unashamed of his display of emotions before her.

"I know you do. And I promise you'll see me again. Now promise me, Robert, that you won't give up."

Biting his lip, he nodded. "I promise." He grabbed her hand, relieved to feel its solidity in his. "I promise I won't ever forget you," a sob broke his words, "I'll never stop loving you. Just you." He raised a trembling hand to her face, feeling the smooth skin he'd missed for so long.

"You can't stop loving people just because of me."

"I love Foreman. That's enough. You were enough…I don't want any more," he struggled to explain, "I don't want to love like that again. Not anyone…just, just you."

She smiled. "You always were incurably romantic." Sighing, she asked, "You promise?"

"I promise."

"Good," she ran a hand through his hair, stroking his temples, a slight smile on her face as she kissed him briefly. "Now go." As the last syllable dropped from her lips, she began to fade, her eyes glimmering with a hint of tears before he closed his eyes.

Chase awoke with a start, gasping for air to soothe his aching lungs. The pain had not lessened by seeing her, by feeling her touch on his skin after so long. If anything, it was worse. But he had promised. Whether the whole thing had been a figment of his imagination, or some ghostly vision from another world, he had promised. She had promised he would see her again, and Ally did not break her promises to him.

He would not break his. He would live the life he'd meant to share with her, see the things she never got to, and one day, he would tell her all about it. He could still feel the pressure of her lips on his, an invisible reminder of her that he would always carry.

It was a promise.


End file.
